Cherry trees, country music

Next stop: Margaret, my boss from my Primate Center research days. She is slightly eccentric, and very British, and neither one of these things captures her fully or explains the delight and frustration of conversation with her. Margaret is the only person I know who can cover, in one breath, something fascinating about rotaviruses, her husband's propensity for ruining tea kettles, and the intricacies of dealing with zebras in the front yard at midnight. (Her son lives in Kenya, which makes this less absurd than it first seems.) On this visit, I get an hour's monologue on the latest activities of the Native Plant Society, the most recent recipient of her considerable energy, which needs an outlet now that she's retired. This lecture comes complete with a field trip to the project site on the Burke Gilman trail; I learn which cherry trees aren't native, and have therefore been tagged with the Orange Construction Tape of Imminent Death. There is also, somehow, a seamless transition into a 20 minute conversational detour regarding the most recent academico-political developments in the UW's School of Public Health. I am grateful to be reminded why I got out of research.

I think Alicia is the only one who can appreciate the full magnitude of an afternoon with Margaret. Back at the lab, we had a "rescue me" code to extricate each other from conversations like this. One blink meant come back in five minutes. Two blinks meant "I'm about to crawl out of my own skin - please invent a PCR catastrophe for me to attend to..." I love Margaret, though, I really do. There's absolutely no one like her, and if I ever lose touch with her I'll miss her tremendously.

I finish off the night at St. Clouds. Four years away from Seattle, and I still get a hug from the owner when I walk through the door. In the 18 months before I left Seattle for vet school, there were probably only a handful of Monday nights that didn't find me on the last stool at the bar, doing considerable damage to the local liquor supply, and listening to yet a few more of Seattle's brilliant unheard-of musicians. It seems only fitting to spend my last night here. Besides, I have to explain to the boys why I'm not married now. They were going to play the wedding, after all.

The first set is a little rough; everyone's mind is somewhere else. By the second set, they've settled in, and the audience is down to me and about six other regulars. We sit in the candlelight and sing Townes Van Zandt songs at full volume. It's a perfect, comfortable moment, and the reason I came back week after week after week. It's like being in a friend's living room, but with more amps, and full bar service.

Tom (Tom B., as opposed to Tom G. of the boat and the Ballard condo) asks what I want to hear; I ask for a moving-across-country, not-getting-married song. I get Greyhound Therapy:

"I never said you tried to contain me
But I don't think I'll ever settle down
I ain't comfortable getting comfortable here with you
I need the sound of the wheels rolling on the ground"

We both smile when he gets to the line about "Busting out of here tomorrow morning..."

He buys me one last Chopin martini and I reluctantly head out. Six hours later I've gotta be on the road, seriously eastbound.

[PS - Tom's website here]